The Sealight
by nochetwas31
Summary: What if Loki had not fallen from the Bifrost? Thor leaves Loki and Jane in the company of the guardian of the sealight, after extracting an unbreakable promise from Loki that he will protect Jane from harm. But the trickster god finds he might just want to protect her of his own volition...please review! Loki/Jane.
1. Chapter 1

This, like so many others, was a story of the sealight.

The locals in this coastal village of Norway, which hung on the precipice of a cliff, had noticed the phenomenon almost since the first moment of their settling. At the close of day, as the sun descended behind the line of the horizon, there was a single moment when the light appeared to shine from under the waves themselves, as if the ocean had swallowed the flames and for a fierce instant provided all light in the world. This was called the sealight. And, as is wont to happen when the people of Midgard discover what they believe to be a reflection of the divine, it became a source of festivals, holidays, and mysticism in the village.

At some point now lost to the records of history, the village elders decreed that the sealight was the working of the gods and ordered a shrine be hewn out of the most jagged cliff that faced west towards the setting sun. And so the shrine was erected, a structure of granite so expertly worked that the vines which framed the doorway looked as if they would flutter in the next strong wind. A hut was built nearby, so that a guardian might ensure the sacred flame placed in the belly of the shrine in honor of the sealight would never go out.

And so this continued for centuries as generations of guardians observed the world from the doorway of the shrine. This tradition remained unbroken, even as empires rose and fell and men turned away from the old ways, dismissing them as stories for children. But the guardians ensured that the flame never went out and went to the shrine every morning to greet the dawn and every dusk to bear witness to the sealight, because eight hundred years ago, the golden-haired one had appeared in the village square, eyes flashing, hammer clenched in his right fist as if his grip were the only thing tethering him to the earth. Casting about, his eyes found the first guardian of the shrine, which had so recently been finished that there was still a fine dusting of powdered granite on the carvings in the walls. In a quiet tone that somehow enhanced the power of his presence, Thor had proclaimed:

"Prepare yourself. I will return. And you will be needed."

x-x-x-x-x-x

The present guardian of the shrine had once been named Erik, but no one had called him by that name in so long that sometimes he half-forgot that he had been born someone other than the guardian. The village people, when they spoke to him at all, called him _Vorðr_, from the Old Norse word for guard, and bowed their heads and averted their eyes. To be guardian of the shrine was to hold the highest position in the entire village. Little children were taught that they would never come close to the level of guardian, and that this was a post that was to be feared and respected. In some of his less reverent moments, the guardian thought to himself that it was a position that was good for the ego, if not for the soul. He would catch himself before traveling too far down this path of thought, cursing his own blasphemy and reminding himself of the importance of post, how his work would pave the way for the return of the gods. But after fifty years of serving as guardian, there was a small part of him, growing larger every day, which doubted the gods would ever come.

And so, on this particular morning, the light spilled across the hearth, and the guardian got up to see the sun illuminating the fjords and to hear the puffins calling to each other from across the bay. He massaged his shoulder, working the stiffness out of his joints. Groaning, he went inside to fetch a poultice that Ingrid the shopkeeper had pressed into his hands last time she saw him shuffling in town, saying it would help his sore joints. Although most of the villagers had embraced modern medicine in all of its creamy promises of eternal youth, Ingrid still created her own remedies from the herbs grown in her garden. The guardian had accepted the package gruffly. The gruffness stemmed partially from habit and partially from the embarrassment he felt because, even fifty years later, he did not know quite what to say to a woman who, as a girl of sixteen, had pledged her heart to him until the sealight went out, as the saying was in the village.

This before he was called up to be the guardian. The process of how the next guardian was chosen remained almost as much of a mystery as the sealight itself. All that the villagers knew was that when a guardian came to be so old that the trip from hut to shrine (a distance of only a few hundred meters at most) became nearly impossible, all the men, women, and children of the village would begin a nightly pilgrimage to the cliffs to witness the sealight, until one of them was marked by the gods as the next guardian. And there, one night, as the sealight blazed forth, Erik had heard the murmurs of his fellow villagers and looked down to see that his skin was pulsing with the same light that shone from the sea.

But his first thought was not how honored he was to be chosen by the gods, or how humbled he felt by the weight of the role that had just descended on his shoulders. No, his first thought was of the slight gap between Ingrid's front teeth, and the freckle that was so close to the corner of her eye that it disappeared into a small wrinkle every time she smiled. For the guardian of the shrine, whether male or female, was to live a solitary existence in the hut, preparing for the return of the gods, and could neither wed nor have children. For the first time, Erik tasted the acrid tang of destiny in his mouth, the way it could change your life in a single instant and leave your sweetheart staring after you in disbelief, in mourning, as you are led away to don ceremonial robes and begin your training.

So the guardian could hardly be faulted, when Thor, Loki, and a strange woman materialized out of thin air that dawn, that his first reaction was that of faint resentment. Fifty years of repressed bitterness has a way of calcifying the soul.


	2. Chapter 2

Thor and Loki stepped onto the cliff's edge as if they dropped out of thin air on a regular basis. The woman was slightly unsteady on her feet and nearly tripped on a crevice in the rock. Thor held her arm to steady her, looking concerned, while Loki looked away, clearly bored, before drawling,

"Well, you've certainly brought us to one of the most god-forsaken spits of Midgard, _brother mine_. I do hope this is where you plan to offer the mortal up for sacrifice so we can get on with other business."

Jane bit her lip, uncertain at how to react to the outright venom in Loki's voice. Thor glared at Loki and said, "For the last time, her name is Jane, and if you do not treat her with respect, I shall make you."

"You have been trying to teach me lessons for millennia and it has never gotten you very far. Need I remind you of the time you cracked one of the columns in Odin's great hall…"

Thor cut him off with another look. "Enough, I did not come here to play games."

He turned to the guardian, who had been watching the scene unfold with an impassive gaze. "Hail. I trust that the guardian here gave notice of my impending return."

The guardian inclined his head in affirmation with a quiet, "Yes, my lord."

Thor waved his hand impatiently. "Well, summon him at once. I have great need of him."

The guardian responded, "My lord, I am the guardian."

Thor paused, confused. "No, the guardian was a taller man, with a full beard. Has he fallen ill? I must speak with him."

The silence stretched between the four of them until it seemed to tumble over the cliff.

"My lord, I am the guardian. The man you speak of died some eight hundred years past."

Another silence after these words, broken only by the sound of Loki's laughter echoing off the rock. "Oh, this _is _good. The god of thunder loses track of Midgard time once again. You do realize that they have evolved beyond bows and arrows, as well? I hear rumors they have actually reached the twenty-first century by their reckoning."

The blond-haired god appeared momentarily flustered, but soon recovered his composure and spoke again. "No matter. You are the guardian now, and I am in need of your service. This is Jane Foster, a scholar of the sciences. I need you to protect her in my absence."

The guardian inclined his head once more in acknowledgement and turned toward Jane. "My lady."

Jane was taken aback at being addressed so formally. "No, no, my name is Jane, just Jane. You do not have to call me…just Jane is fine."

The guardian glanced at Thor, who nodded in affirmation. "Of course, Lady Jane."

Loki smirked and said, "Well, I for one am in favor of any obeisance that can still be wrung from the humans."

"Enough, brother. You shall learn to hold your tongue during your stay here."

It was hard to tell who appeared more shocked by these words, Loki or Jane. Jane's eyes widened, while Loki's lips thinned to the point of disappearing before he hissed,

"I, stay here? Surely you must be joking."

"Does it appear that I jest?"

"I would not have thought anyone, even you, so dense as to think to make me stay anywhere against my will. I will be halfway to Asgard before your precious woman even has time to blink."

"There is one way to make you stay, brother."

This time the silence seemed to ring out between the gods staring at each other. Loki looked from Thor to the guardian to Jane. He smiled suddenly, without warmth, and turned back to Thor with something almost like respect in his eyes.

"Well done, Thor. I would not have thought you clever enough to read the old books to discover such magic. A _skaldr _it is to be, then."

Jane quickly asked, "What's going on?"

Thor took her hand. "Jane, I must go and defeat an evil that threatens the nine realms. I cannot say where I will go or by what means. I dare not even speak the name of this horror, for it can sense such things. But I swear to you, I will defeat it and come back to you. For now, I must ask that you remain here, under the protection of the guardian…and Loki. They will keep you safe. As for you, Loki," he faced the raven-haired god who had turned his back and was studiously ignoring everyone. "I am binding you here because you of anyone will know how to keep her out of harm's way."

Loki turned, "Oh, spare me the theatrics. Why don't you just admit that you fear I will run off and join the evil? It's in my blood, is it not? My Jotun blood."

He held up his hands and the air about them shimmered as his skin began to turn blue. Jane watched, unable to look away. Loki noticed her staring and caught her eye with a mocking half-grin. "Oh, I see that your woman does not know of my noble blood. Yes, Lady Jane, I am the stuff of which nightmares are forged and your beloved has chosen me to guard you. It speaks well to his discerning sense of judgment, does it not?"

"Enough!" Thor had balled his hands into fists. "You go too far. You shall treat Jane with the deference owed her under the iron rule of the _skaldr _if you do not have the honor within you to do it as my brother!"

Loki fixed Thor with an icy stare. "I am no brother of yours. Now, shall we get this over with? I, for one, wish this whole affair done with." Loki rolled up his sleeves, exposing the pale undersides of his wrists. He smiled at a thought that suddenly occurred to him. "You did not tell Lady Jane of these proceedings, did you? Let us hope she is not afraid of blood."

x-x-x-x-x-x

Thor grasped Jane's hand and led her a little ways away, almost to the edge of the woods that started behind the guardian's hut and extended to the edge of the world, for all that Jane knew. She was suddenly exhausted as the enormity of what had happened in the past forty-eight hours hit her. Thor had showed up in a blaze of an electrical storm at her lab in New Mexico two days before. Jane had been alone, as Darcy had gone back to college and Eric was away at a conference in Toronto. Thor had strode into the lab and explained without even pausing to greet her properly that there was an unspeakable evil that threatened all of existence, and that she needed to come with him in order to be safe.

Head whirling, Jane had packed some basics, including some clothes, a toothbrush, and some books, when Thor had abruptly announced that he had just thought of something and that he would be back. He was gone as quickly as he'd come, leaving a vacuum in his wake that crackled with a kind of anticipation and fear. He had returned the next day with a reluctant Loki in tow, and the three of them had spirited away to this edge of nowhere. Now she eyed Thor warily, unsure of her future and of cosmic workings beyond her understanding. She started with what she thought was the simplest of all the questions whirling about in her mind.

"What's a _skaldr_?"

Thor sighed and looked her in the eye. "It comes from the Old Norse word meaning 'shackle.' It's a spell that one Aesir puts on another to bend them to their will."

Jane was horrified. "You're going to make Loki some kind of slave?"

Thor shook his head quickly. "No, no, it's an exchange of power of sorts. One Aesir agrees to do the other's bidding, and is tied to something physical - a certain area, or a person. That Aesir then serves their term protecting that land or that person, after which time the Aesir who originally performed the _skaldr _is in the debt of the Aesir who was bound."

Jane pondered these words for a few minutes as Thor watched her carefully. "It seems, I don't know, barbaric on some level."

"It is used only in times of great need and when one of the Aesir is…perhaps not the most trustworthy. I do this only because I know what evil I go to face and Loki may be the only one who would be able to protect you fully. Please, I beg of you, accept this. I need to know that you will be safe."

After searching Thor's eyes for a minute, Jane slowly nodded. Thor's shoulders loosened in relief as he looked over at Loki. "Loki, a word."

Jane walked back, almost to the edge of the cliff while Thor and Loki conversed in low, tense voices. She heard a footstep behind her and looked up to see the guardian watching her with inscrutable eyes. She sighed. "This is not going to be easy, will it?"

When several minutes went by without a reply, she thought that he had not heard her. But as the sun began to make its way toward the horizon, she heard him speak.

"That, I do not know, Lady Jane."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Thor pulled Loki to face him, wishing that he had another option. But time was short, the need was great, and Loki, of anyone, knew how to stay one step ahead of trouble. No, this was the not the best of all possible worlds, but it was the one he found himself facing. Loki smiled slowly.

"Come now, Thor. Why go to all this trouble for a woman? I am certain that she can certainly satisfy your…needs, but there are other…" His words were cut off as Thor pinned him to an oak tree. A cascade of needles rained upon both of them. Loki's grin grew wider.

"Loki, you will protect her with your life. I do not know what has happened to you to make you so heartless, but you will put that aside and find the decency that I know dwells in you still."

"I will do your bidding only with the weight of the _skaldr _upon me. But when the appointed time comes, rest assured that the price you pay for making me stoop to such humiliation will be great."

With those words, Loki broke Thor's grip, brushed off the needles that clung to the hem of his cape and strode back to where Jane and the guardian stood watching the sea. He called out to Jane,

"Thor probably did not inform you that some of your blood will be needed for this 'barbaric' ritual."

Jane wrapped her arms around herself, eying Loki warily. "No, he did not mention that."

"Not to worry, a few drops will suffice. I could do the honors myself, if you are so inclined…"

"Stand back, Loki," warned Thor. Turning to Jane, he said,

"Yes, it's true. Just a tiny bit of blood. Do you feel you will faint? I know there are some women who grow ill at the sight of their own blood."

Jane's back straightened. She was a grown, strong, independent woman and she would be damned if she showed weakness now, especially with Loki watching her so closely.

"I'll be fine," she almost snapped. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just hold out your hand. Your right one."

She did so, and Thor unsheathed a small dagger that had been hidden in his boot. Carefully, he scored down the lifeline of her palm, so that a dotted line of blood ran from the pad of her thumb to her wrist. He went to where Loki was standing and swiftly repeated the process. He then stooped to the ground and gathered a handful of dirt. With the earth on his finger, he traced Jane's lifeline, then Loki's and spoke ancient Norse phrases that sounded like icebergs drifting over the sea. A yellow light emerged from both Loki and Jane's palms.

She let out a tiny gasp as she stepped involuntarily towards Loki, her palm humming with energy. She looked up into Loki's eyes and found the mocking mirth had vanished, leaving something eternal behind that spoke of millennia of winters and stars. He had borne witness to tidings she could not imagine, and for a split second she felt the irrational need to touch his brow, to smooth away the furrows that appeared permanently carved there.

She couldn't look away, and as she was propelled forward by the same energy that was now singing from her palms, her still-bleeding hand reached up to lay flat against his. She was startled to feel the calluses of his palm, and the coolness of his fingers. Thor spoke a final phrase and the spell sealed, causing the energy to dissipate. Jane was left breathless and slightly light-headed, as if she had stood up too quickly.

Thor spoke. "It is done. Loki is bound to Jane, and should anything happen to her, the pain he will know will be unbearable. He is also bound to the land and cannot leave until my return. You will be safe, Jane, and I promise I will come back for you." He pressed a kiss to her hand.

She smiled faintly. "It seems you make that promise a lot. Just make sure you continue to keep it." Thor smiled, the first real smile since he had seen her two days ago, and the warmth of it made her feel as if things weren't quite as dire as she feared they were.

"I must leave now. Goodbye, my fairest Jane." With a last, all-too-brief kiss, he strode away and vanished in a storm of electricity.

Jane was numb. Her limbs did not seem to work properly, and she concentrated on simply breathing. Unwilling to turn back to the gazes of the trickster god and guardian she felt on her, she turned back to the sea. At that moment, the sun slipped under the waves and the sealight blazed forth. She watched it, drinking in its magnificence, as if it could give her sustenance and strength for the days to come.


End file.
